Intervention: helping, interfering or just being useless?

Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny. -- Thomas Jefferson

A little power, like a little knowledge, can be a dangerous thing. Some people think of power as though it were a muscle: Use it or lose it. So they easily give into the temptation to “intervene” into others' affairs.

But intervention can easily be seen as “interference” by those who gain nothing from it. Those who welcome the intervention and the advantages it brings will call it “help.” Easily overlooked is the likelihood that the intervention will not have any effect besides producing headlines in newspapers, or hours of comment by media pundits. The fact that an intervention may be well intended does not prevent it from turning out to be a long-term disaster. The wars in Viet Nam, Iraq and Afghanistan were all initiated though interventions based on presumably honorable intentions. Notably, the costs of these interventions were not borne, in the largest measure, by their initiators.

BLOODLETTING The Burns Collection

Educational reform in the United States has been a continuing focus for delusional intervention through more than a century of U.S. history. Why delusional? Because the basic logic of intelligent intervention was ignored or replaced by wishful thinking.

What is this basic logic? It consists of three things. Do not intervene unless…

1. (cue) … you have accurately determined whether the situation that prompts you is, in fact, what you think it is. (Misperceptions and false starts abound.)

2. (concern) … the situation prompting your intervention will, in your best judgment, negatively affect your (whose?) interests. (Is it your “business”; is it worthwhile?)

3. (control) … your actions (or strategic inactions) will generate effects that influence sufficiently lasting changes in the situation. (Will things revert back to the way they were before intervention?)

I worked for many years in a school system with a “zero-tolerance policy” on fighting: students, otherwise peaceable, who offered resistance against the physical assault of bullies were suspended along with their attackers. One particular student, a quiet sort, was admonished by the principal, “Johnny, you’re such a good student; but, you keep on getting suspended for fighting back. I’ve told you time and time again that whenever someone assaults you, to are to come tell me about it.”

Johnny replied, “What’d you do before that has ever stopped ‘em botherin’ me? You gonna walk me home or to school? How’m I supposed ta live in my neighborhood, if I get a rep(utation) for running to a teacher every time I’m in trouble?”

The principal responded with a not untypical intervention: Johnny was sent away to a disciplinary school for being “highly insubordinate.”

“They .. make a desert, and they call it peace” -- Tacitus (AD 56 – AD 117)

For references and to examine these issues in detail, see Rationales for Intervention: From Test to Treatment to Policy



Cordially
--- EGR

“Expert Advice” You Can Do Without

A bunch of kids will be playing together in a schoolyard. Suddenly, a newcomer appears and chants, “Oooooooo. Watch out or you’re gonna get in trouble! You’re gonna get in trouble.” What frequently happens next is the children who were playing stop and leave for other places.

If the children are older, one might challenge the newcomer, “How’re we gonna get in trouble?” The newcomer replies, naming a teacher, “Mrs. Smith doesn’t like people doing that. She'll find out and you’ll be sorry.” This will disperse all but the most rarely courageous – generally characterized as “obstinate” -- children.

Take note that the “what it is” that would supposedly get them into trouble was never identified. Neither was the “why” it was unacceptable. Nor was any evidence given that Mrs. Smith in fact would disapprove. And even if she would have, the mysterious “what it is” might be quite acceptable to other teachers and parents.

But these were kids, after all. We wouldn’t expect them to act like little detectives and lawyers. But do adults handle such situations any better?

In a column called “Legal Talk” in the Winter 2011 issue of Educational Horizons the columnist, co-author of a book called School Law for Teachers gives advice to teachers to report suspected child abuse. What is abuse? Physical abuse, sexual abuse and neglect are given more or less clear examples. But the category, “Emotional or Psychological Abuse” sounds more than a little bit like “Watch out! Or you’re gonna get in trouble.”

Emotional abuse “is a pattern of behavior that impairs a child’s emotional development or sense of self-esteem.” I have seen many an educator or parent sweat at the presentation of such a definition. I don’t think it was guilt. Rather, it was frustration at the prospect of having to fake a vaguely defined decision.

Is there any science behind this notion of emotional or psychological abuse strong enough and so widely accepted that a jury could determine that

1. a child’s emotional development had been impaired; and
2. the behavior of an accused individual had been the primary cause of that impairment?

And how about the child’s “sense of self-esteem?” Even children can misjudge things. Is this "sense of self-esteem" anything firmer upon which to base a legal argument? One’s “sense” of things, say, of acceptance into a group, can be inaccurate, as proven by later treatment received from members. Self-esteem fluctuates in some people depending upon the advertisements they happen to be watching on TV. Again this brings up difficulties in proving that one or more persons are primary causes of such fluctuations.

Educators are reluctant to intervene in circumstances vague or ambiguous enough to permit their own higher-ups to reverse a decision (for whatever reason.) Nor are educators trained -- as a matter of professional development -- to justify their intervention in the face of such a reversal.

Mere administrative or parental objection will disperse all but the most rarely courageous, or trained – generally characterized as “obstinate” -- teachers.

As a practicing educator, do what thoughtful consideration recommends; but, in order to learn how to construct strong reasons for your intervention, see Rationales for Intervention: From Test to Treatment to Policy


Cordially
--- EGR